Well played, Mr. President. Last week, prior to the big AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles, President Obama personally spoke to AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka, asking him to water down several anti-Obamacare resolutions that union leaders were planning to pass there. Trumka obliged, keeping a call to repeal Obamacare out of the official AFL-CIO resolution on the health law. Then, on Friday evening, after the convention was over, the Obama administration revealed that it would be ignoring unions demands to offer Obamacares subsidies to their members. As a result, some unions fear they will wither away. I guarantee you by your next convention four years from now, you wont meet a quarter of this room, said Joseph Nigro, president of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Union. We wont be here.

Unions were seeking special treatment under Obamacare

This latest development was first reported by Ezra Klein of the Washington Post. Heres the issue that was at stake. A number of labor unions participate in multi-employer health plans, also known as Taft-Hartley plans. These plans allow unions to organize all the restaurant workers in a particular county, taking advantage of the economies of scale that come from a larger insurance pool.

The problem is that businesses with less than 50 employees now have an incentive to drop health coverage for their employees and let those workers get coverage on the exchanges. Its a better deal for those workers, and a better deal for their employers. But its a blow to the labor unions who organize the plans, because workers no longer need unions to negotiate their health coverage.

...labor leaders wrote, Obamacare would shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.

But with Republicans in firm control of the House of Representatives, Democrats have no ability to unilaterally rewrite Obamacare in order to please labor leaders. On Wednesday, Terence OSullivan, president of the Laborers International Union of North America, said, If the Affordable Care Act is not fixed, and it destroys the health and welfare funds that we have fought for and stand for, then I believe it needs to be repealed.

2
posted on 09/14/2013 7:27:30 AM PDT
by xzins
( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)

Well, I believe God fearing Republicans shouldn’t waste the moment and just let them flounder forever.

Unions, as all neutral things, can be used for ill or for good, to court bane or to receive blessing. It was putting man first and God anywhere else in the pecking order that got unions and everything else in a mess! Because man is spiritual and can’t stand alone anyhow... that was true in the Garden of Eden and it’s true now. That ole devil snickers in the corner that he’s got um. Until God’s salvation is accepted then watch that devil scurry, though not without spouting the biggest clouds of lies he can. It is a battle scene, it is a challenge scene. But when approached in the courage of God, it ALWAYS is a victory scene.

13
posted on 09/14/2013 7:42:27 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(The Lion of Judah will roar again if you give him a big hug and a cheer and mean it. See my page.)

Trumka obliged, keeping a call to repeal Obamacare out of the official AFL-CIO resolution on the health law. Then, on Friday evening, after the convention was over, the Obama administration revealed that it would be ignoring unions demands to offer Obamacares subsidies to their members.

Ha ha.

Union thugs are treated like the slaves their master Obamugabe wants them to become.

Well, God can understand it! And did something that Jeremiah didn’t know about yet... died on a cross to save it. That’s the point.

The gospel imbues the deep believer with a new energy. An energy that seeks FIRST to pull the sinner from the grip of sin, and comes on with unusual weapons of love and kindness as well as rebukes that are focused at evil and which do not constitute broadside damnations of people. If the need arises to protect one’s community from deadly danger it can use the sword but that is not the first choice and it is never selfish — a martyrdom is preferred to selfish warfare. Quite a different tune than the world sings.

19
posted on 09/14/2013 7:55:59 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(The Lion of Judah will roar again if you give him a big hug and a cheer and mean it. See my page.)

On Wednesday, Terence OSullivan, president of the Laborers International Union of North America, said, If the Affordable Care Act is not fixed, and it destroys the health and welfare funds that we have fought for and stand for, then I believe it needs to be repealed.

With some unions saying this is broken, it might make sense to try and win them to the "repeal obabacare" side.

They were in it for the wrong reason, but those that are against it are against it. Besides, Reagan won the blue-collar guys and didn't look back.

Ultimately, Obama hates the middle class and wants to get rid of it, and these union guys are middle class.

Their sons and daughters are being reduced to minimum wage serfs working part-time and they see it.

20
posted on 09/14/2013 7:59:11 AM PDT
by xzins
( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)

Basically... the Old Testament is God’s elementary school. Its lessons never become false within their domain, but they are not the complete picture any more than elementary school lessons would constitute college coursework.

21
posted on 09/14/2013 8:00:30 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(The Lion of Judah will roar again if you give him a big hug and a cheer and mean it. See my page.)

In answer to your query about why people join and follow unions. In 1967 and 68 when I was in college I worked summers as a laborer in NYC for Local 731 Int’l Laborers and Hod carriers. I was paid $4.75/hr. A good wage and better than most college kids got back then. If you go to inflation calculator you will find that $4.75 then is $33.22 today, but members of 731 make $41.29 plus $26 in benefits/hr. Given that construction has weather related down times the laborer still can make $75K-$85K per year plus benefits. And the laborer is at the bottom of the construction wage scale in NYC. Carpenters, electricians, wire lathers, ironworkers make more. The non union guys are making $25-$30/hr with very minimal bennies in the area. That’s why people join and stay in unions. Oh and back in 67 I worked my tail off for those 9 weeks and the guys I know who are 731 laborers today still do. One final thought. In May 1970 I and 100K other hardhats marched in support of President Nixon and the troops in Viet Nam in the hardhat parade. No one complained about us being union members then.

23
posted on 09/14/2013 8:03:42 AM PDT
by xkaydet65
(.You have never tasted freedom, else you would know it is purchased not with gold but with steel)

I guarantee you by your next convention four years from now, you wont meet a quarter of this room, said Joseph Nigro, president of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Union. We wont be here.

neither will 0blowme you stooopid union goon you...

24
posted on 09/14/2013 8:03:51 AM PDT
by Chode
(Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -vvv- NO Pity for the LAZY)

One can’t wisely divorce one’s activity from an overall consciousness of the Lord. Money is a powerful motivator but it shouldn’t be one’s Lord and Savior. Unlike God who never perishes, it is possible to push the golden goose that lives on this sinful earth onto the endangered list. Atlas shrugged and looked abroad, the place where the unions hadn’t managed to go. Some kind of mutual reward system would have worked better for the overall term even if it didn’t yield quite as much money up front. IMHO.

26
posted on 09/14/2013 8:10:08 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(The Lion of Judah will roar again if you give him a big hug and a cheer and mean it. See my page.)

But with Republicans in firm control of the House of Representatives, Democrats have no ability to unilaterally rewrite Obamacare in order to please labor leaders.

Are you freaking kidding me? It's a Democrat bill. It always was a Democrat bill. If they have a problem with it, then they should keep in mind that Democrats did it. And on top of that, they continue to this day to support those very same Democrats.

obama is the god of the labor unions from what I heard them [labor unions] espouse. They and obamacare, in my opinion, deserve each other. They were more than willing to inflict both [Obama and obamacare]on me. As far as I am concerned they can find another shoulder to cry on.

I have no problem with people assembling together and negotiating. They’re just using numbers to increase their strength against owners who sometimes seem to hold all the cards.

My problem with unions is the same as with anything: power corrupts. Once they got some influence, they then decided to: (1) use it to legislate perks to themselves, and (2) use it to force irrational rules on their workplaces. It is irrational to tell a business that person A can change a lightbulb and person B can’t. It’s crazy to say person A can pack a box but he can’t stack it. Using Hostess bakeries as an example, it’s crazy to say that Twinkies need to be carried one truck and bread has to be carried in another. They killed their companies with that kind of stupidity.

34
posted on 09/14/2013 8:14:52 AM PDT
by xzins
( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)

Oh, let's not kid ourselves; if Obama with the stroke of the pen can exempt the legislature and their staffs from ObamaCare, and provide a subsidy, he can surely offer the same to these Unions. This is probably just public bluster on Obama’s part, with a little wink and a nod.

Ultimately all must put God first. Sometimes numbers are needed in order to push a point with another group. I think of different “red necks” who fought in the 30’s (IIRC) against ridiculously dangerous mining conditions in West Virginia. They were actually helping, not hurting, a stubborn selfish mining management as well as themselves. They took pride in what they were doign.

However pride in one’s work shouldn’t slide into self sufficient egotism. It should be equivalent to giving God the glory in it and boasting, ultimately, about what God has done. When the first long distance telegraph was sent, it asked “What hath God wrought?” In an awe that to today’s jaded ears is quite lost. And needs to be found again, post haste. We should be asking that in spades at every single technological wonder we encounter today. “What hath God wrought?”

39
posted on 09/14/2013 8:20:24 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(The Lion of Judah will roar again if you give him a big hug and a cheer and mean it. See my page.)

Hey, God is like that. God is here as the “heavenly huckster.” God’s here actively pushing heaven on us hellish mortals. Sometimes we have to be so filled up with hell that we absolutely fail, before we’ll consent to let heaven in, and God uses that situation without skipping a beat because He very slyly forgave us at the Cross. Really it must suck to be Satan trying to get a leg up here and always failing in the end. Suck to the max.

47
posted on 09/14/2013 8:28:22 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(The Lion of Judah will roar again if you give him a big hug and a cheer and mean it. See my page.)

What Obama and all the Lefties in the Govt., the Unions, and the Academe have wanted from the get-go is a Single Payer medical system operated by the Govt. Ultimate power over the People can then be maintained. Obama and his minions knew this would never go through as the First Law, so Obamacare was devised as a first step. It was ramrodded through by the Dems without any public input, no hearings, no testimony about impact. As Pelosi so inanely stated: We have to pass it to know what’s in it.

All along, the goal was to create something so horrible, so disruptive, so degrading, that the People would beg for it to be thrown out. Then the hard-sell would begin by both the Dems & traitor Repubs to “streamline” and to “repair” Obamacare into the long-sought after efficient Single Payer plan that would save the day. It will happen before Obama leaves office (maybe by another unlawful Executive order) because most the Repubs are part of the cabal to destroy our country. The People won’t buy it because it will be an even bigger nightmare, but at that point no one in power will be listening to us. Slaves, indeed!

Why of course... but that will is simpler to grasp than we are willing to think in our grown up, sophisticated, prideful mortal minds. I don’t oversimplify in my delightfully childish tag. Come in to the Kingdom as a child and you’ll beat all those “grown ups.”

49
posted on 09/14/2013 8:30:20 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(The Lion of Judah will roar again if you give him a big hug and a cheer and mean it. See my page.)

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